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Book Review
Before God
George W. Stroup
Wm. B. Eerdmans 2004, 210p
Review by Ray Hoekzema
Though our lives are fast-paced and may in many ways be culturally
demanding, it does not let us off the hook that we live our lives coram
Deo – before God. Ben Campbell Johnson, who wrote Living before God,
says “George Stroup has it right: we are all ‘before God’ all the time.”
More importantly, in a time of much pseudo-spirituality, it is Scripture
that will always affirm this truth, Psalm 33: 13-15 being just one of
the classic passages that does this.
Several chapters in this book deal with sin, grace, and gratitude, and
were originally given as lectures. Stroup says that at the time he was
intrigued by peoples’ reaction. Many contemporary Christians –even
though these truths are central to the Heidelberg Catechism- reacted
like they were listening to something from another world.
Stroup’s central thesis – giving an account of some of the differences
between forms of life of Christians today and those of Christians in the
last half of the sixteenth century, concludes that there has been an
eclipse of life before God. Surely, there are many reasons, but one
feature of modernity, with it the eclipse of life before God, is what is
sometimes referred to as “the turn to the self’ in Western culture. The
history of this sea change that separates the 16th century from the 21st
century is complex, but the intellectual developments that occurred in
the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries are a significant
factor. Stroup says that the eclipse of life before God has affected
professional theologians just as much as it has the people in the pews
of the congregation.
The eclipse of life before God has had an erosive effect on Christian
piety, on practices such as the regular reading of the Bible, prayer,
public worship, and serving God in society. For several decades
observers of Christian life have noted the remarkable phenomenon of a
growing biblical illiteracy. What is significant about that is not only
that Christians no longer know the content of Scripture, but even more
importantly, that they cease to be individuals and communities whose
identities and character are shaped by what is in Scripture.
Christian faith presupposes not only God’s existence and transcendence
but also that people live before God and are accountable to one another
because they are first accountable to God. From Genesis to Revelation,
the Bible presupposes that human beings are created before God, and live
as such even when they turn away from God, pursue other gods, experience
God’s judgment and wrath and apparent absence and silence.
Even after sin appears, what is at stake in the encounter between Adam,
Eve, and the serpent is how humans will live before God – by trusting or
distrusting God’s Word, by obeying or disobeying God’s commandment. In
violating God’s command, Adam and Eve have altered the created and given
world. It is still a world in which God walks, a world filled with His
presence. To Abram God says: “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be
blameless.” So, already in this life - through the atoning work of Jesus
Christ, the righteousness of Christ through faith - the sinner is able
to stand before God. The life of human beings before God is also the
basis for their life before and with their neighbours. We are to love
our neighbours as ourselves because God has loved us first.
This book is not about God but about life lived before God, what kind of
life that is, and what happens when Christian life becomes
indistinguishable from other forms of life in our increasingly
pluralistic, religiously diverse, multi-cultural society. Stroup shines
the light of Scripture on this powerful truth of coram Deo from every
angle, beginning in Genesis where human life began before God, to
Revelation where verses 9-12 and 14-15 of chapter seven reflect the
perfect ending, eternal life before God in an unending doxology before
God. In reading this book, one recognizes that Stroup speaks before God.
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